In the late 1990s the rural community development movement led mostly by educated, professional women emerged in Lithuania. These were loose organizations, typically made up of 5–10 core activists, engaged in mobilizing local communities in dealing with their social, cultural, political and economic problems. It is argued that the rise of the rural community movement represents one of the responses to the post‐socialist crisis in agriculture as well as a strategy in dealing with growing economic, political, and social marginalization of the rural population in Lithuania. Three interacting developments that contributed to the rise of rural civic activism are analyzed: (a) structural change in the rural economy that lead to a growing stratum of rural population being displaced from commodity agriculture; (b) favorable political opportunity created by the completion of collective farm privatization and the advancement of the process of land restitution, changes in the government's policy, and the rise of NGOs activism supported, in part, by the foreign donors; and (c) innovative strategies and alliances formed by activists, foreign donors, academicians, and local politicians in promoting rural development. Ethnographic research in the village of Balninkai (pop. 496) is used to analyze the dynamics of building of one of the most successful rural community organizations currently active in Eastern Lithuania.

Since the late 1990s the number of rural community development groups in Lithuania has grown exponentially. The article presents the results of one of the first representative surveys of rural NGOs (N = 326) in Lithuania designed to evaluate their structure and resources. Unlike civic organising during the perestroika period, which was characterised by charismatic personalities and organisational innovations, the most recent surge in rural activism follows a path-dependent trajectory. The movement is lead by representatives of former collective farms, or kolkhoz intelligentsia (white-collar professionals who served in collective farm social infrastructure during Soviet times) engaged in reconstituting volunteer groups based on a modified Soviet institution of the rural 'culture house' or Soviet civic centre (SCC). The prevalence of the SCC-based rural organising model provided opportunities as well as imposed limitations on post-socialist civic activism. Community development groups were relatively successful in the types of activities in which SCCs were effective as well (such as culture, leisure and sports), while their capacity to deliver social services were marginal. Although this survey reported relatively high levels of engagement by the community groups with local and county governments, their influence remains constrained by the paternalistic, client-patron type of power relationships that prevail in rural areas.

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Straipsnyje analizuojamas tyrimo dalyvaujant metodas. Tai palyginti naujas sociologijos metodas, jo šalininkų nuomone, pretenduojantis pakeisti klasikinei akademinei sociologija būdingus dominavimo santykius. Tyrimo dalyvaujant metu sociologas ne tik tiria kokį nors socialinį reiškinį, dažniausiai nedidelę marginalizuotą bendruomenę, bet ir bendradarbiauja su ja ieškodamas būdų, kaip keisti marginalizuotos socialinės grupės gyvenseną, o pats tyrimo dalyvaujant metodas siejamas su žinojimo generavimo procedūrų demokratizavimu bei su socialinių pokyčių inicijavimu. Straipsnyje kritiškai analizuojami du tyrimo dalyvaujant pagrindimo būdai: vienas jų susijęs su išlaisvinimo ideologija, kitas – su kritine teorija.

Th is paper develops a framework for analysing the process of rural community development and institutionalisation in Lithuania. Th e fi rst communal groups were established in rural Lithuania in the late 1990s. Over the last decade the number of such organisations in the country increased to 1,400. Although a very positive development, rapidly growing grass-roots activism has oft en led to a complex process of cooperation, confl ict, competition and negotiation among the newly-created community groups and existing state agencies, non-governmental organisations, political parties, and various rural and urban interests. Th e model identifi es four arenas of contention and negotiation, in which the newly-created communal groups have attempted to claim legitimacy and defi ne their role in the social, economic and political life of the country: the public sphere, formalised (state fi nanced and delivered) culture, social